Chapter 5
Chapter Five
WELLS
Now, Four Years Later
Wells stopped in the middle of the hospital corridor, unwilling to go into Pop’s room just yet.
He’d rushed all the way here…but could he face what was inside?
He rubbed a hand down his face and straightened his trench coat. His ear caught on Allison using a courtesy phone at the nurse’s station to call her parents for a ride.
The hospital room door opened, and his sister slid out, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Hey, you,” he said, bundling her into a big hug.
Olivia breathed out a ragged sigh as she wrapped her arms tightly around him. “He’ll be okay. He’s awake, but, you know. It was scary,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Thanks for getting here so quickly.”
“Of course. Nothing more important.” Dark circles were under her eyes. Had she eaten in the last six hours? Had his mom? “Is there anything—”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry about Pop,” Allison interrupted, bundling Olivia in a big hug.
“Thank you.” Olivia gave her a tight squeeze back.
Allison looked at her with concern. “Have you eaten? Can I get you some coffee? Why don’t I grab food from the cafeteria. What does your mom like? Does Pop like pudding? You know what, it’s fine. I’ll get an assortment.”
“What are you doing here?” Olivia said to Allison, looking confused.
Allison rubbed her hands on Olivia’s shoulders, soothing her. “My car is stuck in a ditch on County Road 35, and this guy gave me a ride.”
Olivia pulled a face, that mischievous sparkle in her eyes that always made Wells feel better appearing. “Wow.”
Don’t say a word, he mentally warned his little sister with an arched eyebrow.
“This was closer than my house, and I didn’t want him to wait any longer to see Pop. Anyway, let me go get you some stuff, okay? I’ve got a bit before my parents pick me up.”
“I’ll go with you. I need a walk.”
Allison put an arm around his little sister’s shoulder, squeezing her as they walked away.
Huh, he thought, bewildered. That’s usually my job.
The door to Pop’s room stood cracked open in judgement in front of him.
If I’d made different choices, this wouldn’t have happened, he thought, completely irrationally.
Taking a big breath for bravery, he peeked in. His mom sat on the bed talking to Pop, who was in a pale hospital gown.
They both looked so frail in the hospital bed, tubes and lights and fluorescent shadows making them look older than he remembered them being a week ago.
How many more visits would he get with them? How many more birthdays?
His mom stroked Pop’s bruised face. They looked so breakable, so impermanent in the muted hospital colors.
These two immovable pillars of his childhood now stood before him, looking like the worst possible thing—mortal.
He cleared his throat and stood taller as he pushed through the door. “If you wanted to see me again, all you had to do was ask,” he said with a charming smile.
“Hey, there’s our guy,” Pop said, his voice raspier than normal.
His mom looked relieved. “Oh, hi, sweetie. Olivia said you were coming.”
“Not necessary,” Pop said. “I’m fit as a fiddle. Don’t want you to have to miss work.”
Wells shrugged off his coat with a laugh. “Trust me, they can wait. So,” Wells said, pulling a chair next to Pop’s bed, not liking the feeling of towering over the hospital bed. “Do I need to dust off my trip and fall lawsuit prep?”
His mother, an excellent lawyer in her own right, pushed his shoulder. “Absolutely not. Herbert doesn’t realize he’s not as young as he used to be. He still thinks he’s a spry man in his seventies.”
“I got my feet twisted and then fell, knocked myself out.” Pop laughed at himself. “So embarrassing.”
“He’ll stay here overnight to make sure everything’s okay. They were concerned that he was out for a bit.” His mom looked worried.
“Mom, why don’t you go get some food? Olivia went to the cafeteria.”
She stretched. “I should probably move around a little bit.”
“I’ll keep him company. Make sure he doesn’t do any more leaps.” Wells smiled at Pop, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“So, how was your biggest day of the year?” Pop asked. He’d always been proud of Wells for getting into a top college, then a top law school.
Wells had toyed with the idea of skipping college after working as a line cook through high school, but Pop hadn’t even let him finish his sentence before he’d vetoed the idea.
Wells stretched his legs and shook his head. “Nope, we’re talking about you. I told you you needed to slow down.”
“Pfft.” Pop waved him away. “Gotta keep busy. You know me.”
“Is that why you worked so long?” Wells asked, worries about the diner in the back of his mind.
Pop sighed, looking out into the night.
“Just eats me up inside,” Pop said finally, his lip trembling unexpectedly.
“When you wake up in an ambulance…you think, ‘Is this the end?’ All the good things—you, your mom, Olivia, they all run through your head. But…” Pop shook his head, his eyes filling.
“My biggest regret was selling what my parents built to that company just for them to ruin it. All for a payday.” He punched a hand softly on the hospital bed, trying not to cry. “Just eats me up.”
Wells couldn’t swallow. His heart was too busy breaking to allow any other body part to function.
I should tell him. Come clean. Say it was me who ruined his life’s work.
“My parents didn’t have a lot.” Pop sniffled. “And they worked so hard to build it up, and pass it on to me. Scraped and scrimped every penny so they could keep it going. I know it’s just a restaurant, but…” He huffed a laugh at himself.
Wells had always liked the way Pop had said that word. Rest-rent. It felt old-timey. Like home, and butterscotch candies, and the bright yellow and red condiment bottles in the diner.
“Of course it’s not just a restaurant,” Wells said, leaning forward.
“Oh, it is,” Pop said, nodding. “I’m no hero.
But it’s the only way I knew how to be part of something in town.
How to be somebody. Everyone talked about my mom’s apple pies, how much they loved my parents’ diner in the ’50s.
It made us feel…special. Rather than just barely scraping by.
Now…well, that’s all ruined. And it’s my fault. ”
No, it’s my fault.
I’m the reason one of my favorite humans has his only life’s regret.
Wells tried to force the words out of his mouth, but he was too scared. He couldn’t let the one man who’d always believed in him know that he’d ruined the one thing Pop felt he’d accomplished in his life.
Wells sat in a soup of self-loathing and squeezed Pop’s hand. “I’ll talk to the company.”
“Nah, don’t bother.” Pop sighed. “I figure it’s the universe teaching me one last lesson before I go. I feel like I just…I turned my back on my family, you know?”
The knife in Wells’s heart twisted. This man donated to every fundraiser, bought every box of Girl Scout cookies, never let a person who entered his diner go hungry whether or not they could pay, sponsored every soccer team that asked, and, hell, had even coached Wells’s team one year.
“Don’t tell your mom. She’d be upset since she wanted me to retire. I just wanted to leave part of myself here. I think of you and Olivia as mine, but the diner—that was my family.” Pop sniffled, and Wells handed him a tissue.
In the moment between Pop slowly dabbing one eye and the other, Wells made a rash, life-changing decision.
He’d move back to Fairwick Falls to fix his mess.
To hell with his clients, to hell with the pile of money from the five hundred emails in his inbox, to hell with trying to have a surrogate in Philly.
He only had a few years left to make this right.
To make the man who’d shaken his hand at his high school graduation, who’d given him his first job, who’d been more of a dad to him than his own father, whole again.
He’d be damned to the depths of hell before he let Pop go to the next life thinking he’d failed in any way.
ALLISON
“It’s Mom’s birthday today. Make sure to call her.” Allison pushed out the door of Fox & Forrest with the largest coffee cup they had, cradling her phone against her shoulder, holding a giant box of donuts in her other hand.
“Ugh, I know,” her sister Molly whined. Four years felt like a lifetime of space between them sometimes. “Can you—”
“Don’t worry, I put your name on the card from both of us. Bloom will deliver flowers to their house in a bit.”
“I was gonna get her something, but…”
“Thank you… Is that what you meant to say?” Allison said with a smile.
“Yes, thank you,” Molly said, laughing.
“I also texted Dad to make sure that he actually got her something that she liked this year, so we don’t have to hear about it at dinner.”
Molly sighed. “It’s not your responsibility. He’s a grown man.”
“I know, but it’s easier when everyone is happy.” If she could keep things from bubbling into drama, her mother would be happier. She wouldn’t have to hear about it for weeks on end.
Allison said goodbye and balanced her enormous coffee cup on the donuts as she opened the door to Bloom.
She’d volunteered to babysit her boss Violet’s adorable toddler during an important photo shoot for Bloom. Violet and her husband were going to be featured in a magazine about Bloom’s success, given that they were now in season two of their cable show that featured the store.
Bloom was thriving with new stores popping up what seemed like every few months. The Parker sisters had entrusted her to run their flagship store in Fairwick Falls, and she took the responsibility seriously.
There was a time in her life when she’d actually thought about buying Bloom from them. When it had been a scrappy store they’d relaunched.
Then the divorce had dragged on and on, and she wasn’t able to use the capital to expand her business. She sighed, looking at the bustling photo shoot being set up.